Regina Barreca (born 1957) is an American academic and humorist. She is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut and winner of UConn's highest award for excellence in teaching. She is the author of ten books, including the best selling They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor (Viking/Humor) and editor of 13 others. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Independent of London, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Cosmopolitan, and The Harvard Business Review; for 20 years she wrote columns for various Tribune newspapers as well as a series of cover stories for the Chicago Tribune.

Early life and education

Barreca grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, New York, and is of Italian descent. She was the first woman to be named Alumni Scholar at Dartmouth College, where she earned her 1979 bachelor's degree. Her stories from this time can be found in her memoir, Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-education in the Ivy League.

She was a Reynolds Fellow and earned her 1981 M.A. at New Hall, Cambridge University, and earned her 1987 Ph.D. (English Literature) from the Graduate School, City University of New York, dissertation: "Hate and Humor in Women"s Literature: Twentieth-Century British Writers.". She has also been a Reed Fellow for English Language and Literature at UConn since 2017.

Barreca has also published articles in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, The Orlando Sentinel, Ms. magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Barreca cowrote a series of humor columns in The Washington Post with Gene Weingarten about the differences between men and women. These became the basis of the book she wrote with Weingarten, I'm with Stupid: One Man. One Woman. 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up. They worked for two years via email and on the phone without having met first.

Barreca appeared in Milton Friedman's documentary Free to Choose - Episode 6, as a student for Dartmouth College.

Books

In 2011, Barreca published a memoir about being one of the first classes of women at Dartmouth College titled Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-education in the Ivy League.

Personal

Barreca married her husband, Michael Meyer, in 1991. They live in Storrs, Connecticut.

Works and publications

Books written

  • "If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?" (2016),
  • It's Not That I'm Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World (2009),
  • Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-education in the Ivy League (2005),
  • I'm with Stupid (2004), , co-written with Gene Weingarten
  • An ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Woman's Guide (2003), , illustrated by Nicole Hollander
  • Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful (2000),
  • Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even (1995),
  • Untamed and Unabashed: Essays on Women and Humor in British Literature (1994),
  • Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales) (1993),
  • They Used to Call Me Snow White...But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor (1991),

Books edited

  • Fast Fallen Women (2023),
  • Fast Fierce Women (2022),
  • Fast Funny Women (2021),
  • Make Mine A Double: Why Women Like Us Like to Drink (or Not) (2011),
  • The Signet Book of American Humor (2004),
  • Don't Tell Mama: The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing (2002),
  • A Sit-down with the Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on TV's Most Talked About Series (2002),
  • The Erotics of Instruction (1997),
  • The Penguin Book of Women's Humor (1996),
  • Desire and Imagination: 20 Classic Essays in Sexuality (1995),
  • Fay Weldon's Wicked Fictions (1994)
  • New Perspectives on Women and Comedy (1992),
  • Sex and Death in Victorian Literature (1990),
  • Last Laughs (1988)

Books introduced

  • Dorothy Parker. Complete Stories Colleen Bresse (Editor), Regina Barreca (Introduction)
  • Louisa May. Little Women Regina Barreca (Introduction), Susan Straight (Afterword)

Honorary degrees and awards

In 2000, she received an honorary degree from Shepard's College in West Virginia. She received an honorary degree from Manchester Community College in 2014, and honorary Doctorate of Human Letters, Charter Oak State College, Connecticut in 2016.

  • Gina Barreca at The University of Connecticut
  • Psychology Today articles